Xiaomi is known for releasing breathe taking features and specs for a cheaper price. The Redmi Note 10 is their cheapest phone on the Redmi Note 10 series. It has a Super AMOLED and FHD+ display at an entry-level price. So if you’re short for budget and want a power-efficient display with compelling performance, this phone might be your choice.
Pros
- Equipped with Midrange Chipset
- sAMOLED with 5000mAh battery
- Sub P10,000 smartphone
- Responsive UI
- Impressive battery and Charging
Cons
- Gimmicky Macro Lens
- Uneven Dual Speaker Sound
- Budget build
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Table of Contents
Design
The back of the Redmi Note 10 has a premium-look into it. It is built from a polycarbonate plastic that is gradient-looking and has a glossy finish. It feels solid and lightweight as well. It has a quad-camera setup that kinda resembles the Mi phones. It is USB Type-C and It also comes with dual stereo speakers on top and at the bottom of the phone.
The fingerprint scanner is side-mounted built into the power button. It is quite impressive because Xiaomi managed to put a bit of height on the power button but not the same height as the volume rockers. So at first look, you won’t notice that it has a side-mounted fingerprint scanner.
Display
It boasts a Super AMOLED FHD+ display which is one of the game-changing features in an entry-level device. The colors are great it looks punchy, the blacks are deep and we know that it is power-saving. It also gives a brightness level of up to 1100nits outdoors in auto mode. However, despite the AMOLED panel, the display in contrast on the back is not that premium looking for me.
It looks like the bezels are a bit large, because of a smaller 6.4-inch screen. But if we’re talking about sharpness it has a high PPI density of 409, which makes the small screen and the FHD+ gives compact and tactile sharpness to the viewing experience. It also has a punch hole cut out in the middle housing the 13MP front camera.
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Camera
The Redmi Note 10 is equipped with 4 lenses–48MP f/1.8 main camera, 8MP ultra-wide, and 2MP for both the depth and the macro sensors.
The results on the main cam have a low exposure due to cloudy weather. The sample photos show true-to-life colors with deep blacks, and a lesser dynamic range but once we turn on HDR, shadows will light up, but it adds softness to the photos. Having said, it also balances the overall image while maintaining true-to-life colors and not exaggerating the color reproduction. Subject to background on its portrait mode impressive accuracy giving a more natural look on the depth.
Photos taken indoors are sharp and detailed with punchy colors. Its white balance is a bit inconsistent but overall it outputs a well-balanced photo.
Taking photos at night with night mode off shows a bit of noise but capturing using night mode, lessens the highlights of the photos taken and adds a bit of boost to its colors. Noise reduction is quite aggressive as well resulting in brighter but softer images.
Now heading to its 8MP ultra-wide sensor, It shows the same results in terms of colors and other aspects but there’s a bit of a noticeable softness on the edge of the photo. As is common with budget phones where wide cam lenses almost always have distortions on the edges, this one has little to none.
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Now for the 2MP macro, the colors are a bit washout and it shows noticeable noises on the image. It is acceptable in this price range, and at least we have a quad-camera. But I can deny the fact that it is a bit gimmicky.
Moving to the 13MP selfie cam. The Skin color is very good, the colors are not that oversaturated and it is well balanced. Blacks didn’t crash and it has a sharp and clean beautification. However, highlights tend to be overexposed, the solution is to capture with HDR mode but in portrait mode highlights will remain blown out. Props to the white balance for making the skin tone true to life.
Video and Features
On video recording, the main cam can record up to 4k@30fps, 1080p@60fps, and 1080p@30fps. The most stable footage is on the 1080p@30fps. While on the selfie cam, it can only shoot up to 1080p@30fps which is the usual resolution and frames of any entry-level device.
The camera features of the Redmi Note 10 are also improved. It has a pro mode for each of the sensors we have. It can also shoot pro mode on macro, ultra-wide and wide for both photos and videos. It also has an option to shoot in RAW and just as Xiaomi said on its global launch–it has a Pro mode on its time-lapse which is kind of gimmicky but it may be useful in some cases.
These camera results and outputs are okay, especially in its price. It does have some ups and downs when it comes to other lenses but overall you get what you paid for.
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Performance
Out of the box, The Redmi Note 10 runs on Android 11 and MIUI 12 on top. We all know that MIUI 12 has cool animations and interactive UI so it’s an advantage for the people who like more features on the OS. Under the hood, It is equipped with a Snapdragon 678 powered by an 11nm process and Adreno 612 GPU. The review unit we have comes with 6GB of ram and 128GB of internal storage.
Last year we reviewed the Redmi Note 9 which has over 200,000 points in Antutu Benchmark, and I also said that it is one of the first entry-level phones to reach that point. Now in this year, the Redmi Note 10 is 15% higher than Redmi Note 9 in terms of performance. It also has revamped–a Super AMOLED panel and a 6GB of Ram. These increments are worth mentioning since it is really a major upgrade to the power and offerings than last year’s devices.
READ: Redmi Note 9 Full Review – 1080P on a Budget
The UI is super responsive as well with no stutters at all. The game turbo which optimizes and boosts the gaming experience is still present in the MIUI 12 and also the ads–which you can turn off in the settings. Redmi Note 10 also has dual-band wifi allowing you to choose from 2.4Ghz to 5Ghz bandwidth but we don’t have 5G mobile data. The fingerprint scanner as well as the face unlock is responsive and secured with 99% accuracy.
As for gaming, we tested 6 games on the Redmi Note 10 and if you want the gameplays we have a gaming review on our youtube channel just visit this link. Anyway still out of all those games we tested in our video, Genshin Impact is the only game that we had problems with. It is more stable now in gaming than last year’s Redmi note 9.
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Battery
Now of course if you are a competitive or even a casual gamer, you don’t want your phone running out of juice while you are in a clash or dropping some predator missiles in nuke town. Redmi Note 10 packs a large 5000mAh power battery along with 33w fast charging.
On our usual battery drain test, we recorded 9hrs of endurance in the device thanks to the help of the AMOLED screen. As for charging, since it has a large battery it took quite a while to charge it with 33W but it is still within my standard. We recorded 1hr and a half of charging time in the Redmi Note 10.
Verdict
Overall, Xiaomi did a pretty good job to introduce a phone that could even outperform a mid-range device. For the starting price of P8,490, Redmi Note 10 is definitely on par with lower midrangers. With its 33W fast charging, FHD+ AMOLED display, and mid-range chipset, you could never believe it is in a sub 10k price range. It still has some downsides, like the display is smaller, the dual speakers are not quite powerful, and it feels cheap, but these are all personal preferences.
So for us, it offers more than it cost and a really worthy device to buy. I hope that this will be the start of the industry’s standard when it comes to entry-level devices. Just imagine if they also include a 5G connectivity in this phone.
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Redmi Note 10 specs, price, availability in the Philippines
- Display: 6.43″ Super AMOLED, 1100 nits peak, 180Hz touch rate, HDR10
- Design: Polycarbonate, IP53 splashproof, graphite cooling
- Dimensions: 160.5 x 74.5 x 8.3 mm, 178.8 g
- Chipset:Â Qualcomm SM7125 Snapdragon 678 (11 nm)
- CPU: Octa-core (2×2.2 GHz Kryo 460 Gold & 6×1.7 GHz Kryo 460 Silver)
- GPU: Adreno 612
- RAM: up to 6GB LPDDR4X
- Storage: up to 128GB UFS 2.2 (expandable up to 512GB)
- Main Camera: 48MP, f/1.8, 8MP Ultrawide 2MP Depth 2MP Macro
- Selfie Camera: 13MP f/2.5
- Connectivity & Ports: LTE, Bluetooth 5.0, WiFi ac, GPS, USB-C, NFC, Audio Jack
- Security: face unlock, side-mounted fingerprint scanner
- Battery: 5000mAh battery (33W)
- Audio: Dual Speaker
- OS: Android 11, MIUI 12 (MIUI 12.5 supported)
- Colors: Shadow Black (Onyx Gray), Frost White (Pebble White), Aqua Green (Lake Green)
- Price: P8,490 (4GB+64GB) P9,990 (6GB+128GB)
- Release date: March 2021 (India, Philippines)
